Retailers see
green in these electronic displays, says Virginia Cargill, a
venture partner at Alerion Partners in Rowayton, Conn., and
former CEO at SignStorey, a digital media company focused on the
grocery industry. During her tenure at SignStorey, the company
provided in-store content that included recipes, health tips,
interviews and advertisements. "If the meat department screen had
an ad for Boar's Head or the produce section for Kraft, sales of
those brands would usually see a 15 to 25 percent bump," Cargill
says.

Although shoppers most often see digital signage at big-box
retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy, the technology is becoming
more affordable for smaller businesses. Here are four ways
small-business owners are using digital signs:

Boost revenue through product advertising:
Gertens Greenhouses & Garden Center installed six digital
screens in its 40,000-square-foot space for in-store promotions
and ads from the makers of the products it stocks. The
manufacturer can provide the ad or let Gertens produce it for
$250 to $500, depending on the creative elements. Gertens, a
store in Inver Grove Heights, Minn., with estimated annual sales
of $27 million, will occasionally eat the cost, depending on the
scope of the advertising schedule.

"We’ll identify areas where their ads will work best, or they’ll
run on all the monitors," says Warren Randolph, general manager
of GLT media, Gertens’s in-house agency. When Gertens began using
digital signs two and a half years ago, it invested about $8,000
in the technology. The investment has paid off. In 2011, the
company collected about $20,000 in digital ad revenue, according
to Randolph.

Create a link among all your digital promotions:
When Joanne Teichman remodeled her upscale Dallas jewelry store,
Ylang|23, she installed a 60-inch digital
screen on the back wall. With help from Dallas-based digital
agency Insite, it provides a constant stream of information on
jewelry designers, collections, trunk shows and other upcoming
events for the store. Her staff frequently updates the content
and adapts it for the store’s mobile apps and interactive
website.

"We do get comments from clients making the link between the
digital sign and our website, and we do want to drive traffic to
our site when the customers leave the store," she says. Such
digital signs aren’t out of reach financially for most
entrepreneurs. While Ylang|23 -- with estimated annual sales of
between $6 and $8 million -- spent $7,000 for its screen in 2004,
large-screen LCD TVs are now available for $500 to $1,000.
Teichman declines to discuss any specific sales impact from the
digital screens.

Give your business a sleek, modern look: Many
retailers are using digital signage to add a fresh look to their
stores, a lower-cost alternative to a complete renovation.
"It’s the whole idea of lighting up the aisle. You can look a lot
more professional than you ever did before, and you can change it
on the fly," says Bob Phibbs, a small-business consultant known
as "The Retail Doctor."

Related: Brad Schy, chairman of Los Angeles-based Musical Chairs
Ticket Service, installed two digital screens in his store about
a year ago, featuring PowerPoint presentations of upcoming
concerts, movie premieres, and sports and theater events. Located
in the lobby of a large office building next to a bank, the store
put one digital screen in front to draw in people coming out of
the bank.

"It looks great and doubles as our television when sports are
on," Schy says. "And we fill them with content not only during
the day. but when we’re closed at night." Musical Chairs declined
to comment on whether the digital screens have boosted sales.

Tell your story for a bargain price:Kroma Makeup shows videos
about the company, its products and celebrity clients, on signs
at its boutiques in such tony hotels as the Plaza Hotel in New
York, Aulani Disney Resort & Spa in Ko Olina, Hawaii, and the
Grand Floridian Resort in Orlando, Fla. It uses CiscoWebEx -- at
a cost of $69 a month -- to create its digital content for custom
interactive screens that cost about $2,000 each and can play four
different videos. The company says the screens have paid for
themselves in additional sales after an average of three to four
months.

"At the Plaza, our digital sign was placed at the foot of the
escalator to drive traffic to our station and tell our brand
story, while the multimillion-dollar companies we were competing
against weren’t using them," says company founder Lee Tillette.
Kroma’s annual sales of about $500,000 have grown 10 percent a
year since 2009, up from 7 to 8 percent before the digital signs
were installed in 2009.